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Through circumstances largely out of his control, Rams wide receiver Brandin Cooks has seen fewer targets of late after three consecutive games of 100-plus yards receiving in November. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze/SCNG)

Some people use a week off to clean the house or go to the beach. The Rams changed their offense.

Perhaps it wasn’t deliberate, or even welcomed, but the Rams’ pass game hasn’t quite looked the same since they beat Kansas City on Nov. 19 in one of the highest-scoring games in NFL history. That’s not necessarily a knock, but the Rams might want to get back to their roots in Saturday’s playoff game against Dallas.

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The names haven’t changed. Quarterback Jared Goff still throws the ball to three receivers, a tight end and running back Todd Gurley, but one target has surprisingly risen while another has faded.

“Different defenses are going to try to take away different elements of our offense,” Rams pass-game coordinator Shane Waldron said this week, “and I think regardless of which receivers are in there, their unselfish play has been tremendous.”

That’s true, plus the Rams’ pass game naturally had to change when receiver Cooper Kupp tore an ACL in November, and overall production has dropped, most notably from leading receiver Brandin Cooks.

Robert Woods, not surprisingly, has been remarkably consistent. A graph of his targets, catches and yards over the full season almost would be a flat line, and he appears to have been least impacted by Kupp’s absence, even though Woods has been asked to play inside, in a flanker role, more often.

The issue is Cooks, and likely not through any fault of his own. In five games since the bye week, Cooks was targeted only 33 times, with 21 catches for 240 yards. That put him, not shockingly, behind Woods, but also, second-year receiver Josh Reynolds has 33 targets, 16 catches and 304 yards since the bye.

“I think Brandin has played really well this whole season,” Coach Sean McVay said, “and sometimes the numbers can be a little bit misleading, but he’s doing a great job. You certainly want to get guys like him involved as much as possible, though, absolutely.”

There’s a caveat to the breakdown of Cooks’ recent slowdown. He actually finished the regular season strong, in the finale against San Francisco, with 5 catches for 62 yards and two touchdowns. Perhaps the Rams already have re-adjusted and plan to get Cooks more involved, and that would be important.

Overall, Cooks had a stellar season, with 1,204 yards, and in 7 of his first 11 games this year, Cooks had at least one 30-yard reception. Then came the bye, and Cooks closed the season without a reception of more than 26 yards in any of his last five games.

Cooks particularly was blanked in the Rams’ consecutive losses to Detroit and Philadelphia last month, when he totaled only 9 catches for 81 yards. In those two games, Woods had 14 catches for 135 yards, Reynolds had 8 catches for 106 yards and Everett had 9 catches for 75 yards.

“Sometimes the ball goes in his direction more,” Waldron said of Cooks, “but his steady production throughout the course of the year speaks for itself. When those opportunities present themselves, he makes the most of them.”

Part of the recent issue might be about opposing defenses adjusting to the Rams’ loss of Kupp. Cooks and Kupp both were excellent deep threats, and it’s possible that Cooks simply will be blanketed more by defensive backs until Reynolds proves to be more of a reliable threat. That’s been an issue of late.

Since the bye, Reynolds has caught only 16 of his 33 targets. That’s not all on him, but it’s a success rate (48.5) far lower than that of Woods (67.5), Cooks (63.6) and Everett (62.5).

So there’s a difficult balance here for quarterback Jared Goff. Balance is an important part of any pass game, but if Goff is going to throw the ball toward Reynolds, he has to trust that it will be caught. Also, no quarterback wants to force the ball, but the Rams must find a way to increase their number of big-chunk pass plays, and that starts with Cooks.

Some of the recent changes to the Rams’ offense have been by design. They’ve had Everett and fellow tight end Tyler Higbee on the field at the same time much more often in recent weeks, rather than the regular set of three receivers, one running back and one tight end.

Part of that was because of Everett’s emergence as a receiving threat and part was to provide an extra blocker for the Rams’ run game. If nothing else, credit McVay for not remaining static, but against the Cowboys, he might want to find a way to rediscover the early-season success.

“It’s definitely evolved, yeah,” Goff said of the offense. “Using two tight ends in some situations, finding some stuff that Josh is good at. I think that’s what makes Sean so great is he doesn’t force players into a box, but rather finds out what they’re good at and finds a way to make it work.”

Rich Hammond was a high school senior when the Rams left town in 1995, and now he's their beat writer for the Southern California News Group. A native of L.A., Rich broke in at the Daily Breeze as a college freshman and also has covered USC, the Kings, the Lakers and the Dodgers. He still loves sports and telling stories. Don't take the sarcastic tweets too seriously.